I made a VS Code extension that walks you through how a codebase works

Denizhan Dakılır — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 05:19:44 +0000

I've been working on a VS Code extension called Lodestar for a while and it's finally out, so here's a quick look at what it does.

It's for two things: figuring out how code you didn't write works, and checking a change before it goes in, especially when an AI wrote it.

Ask how something works

You type a question like "how does a request reach the route handler" and it follows the code and gives you the path step by step. Every step is a real line in your project. Click it and the editor jumps there, Tab goes to the next one.

Hover anything

Hover a function, a keyword, an operator or even a regex and you get a few lines on what it does in this codebase. Read more opens a longer explanation with the places it's used.

Reviews

You can review your uncommitted changes, a branch or a commit. You get a verdict and the problems: bugs, security holes, slow code, and the stuff AI assistants tend to leave behind, like comments that repeat the code, tests that don't test anything, or packages that don't exist. New dependencies also get checked against OSV.dev and the package registries. Most findings come with a fix you can apply in one click.

Not locked to a provider

It's built on VS Code's language model API, so there's no AI backend of mine in the middle. It uses whatever model you already have in VS Code, Copilot or any provider extension. I also make the DeepSeek, GLM and Kimi providers for Copilot, and those work with it too.

Why it's paid

It's $10, one time, no subscription. The honest reason it's paid is so I can keep working on it instead of dropping it, and it really helps me.

You can get it here: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DenizhanDaklr.lodestar